speed.

Dick heard the firing over to his left, and knew this was where
General Sullivan was having such a hot fight with the enemy. The youth
would pass within two or three hundred yards of the left wing of the
attacking British, and he kept a sharp lookout in that direction, for
he did not want to get shot by any of the British soldiers.

Presently he caught sight of the right wing of Sullivan's force, and
saw the patriot soldiers firing at the British as rapidly as possible,
and then he saw the redcoats, who were attacking the patriots from
both the front and the rear.

Dick wished that he might be able to help the patriot soldiers fight
the British, but he had business of his own to attend to, and so he
kept onward, running at the top of his speed.

Suddenly, however, when he was perhaps halfway to the point where
General Stirling's army was fighting so bravely, he was given a
surprise, and a most unpleasant one-for he found himself confronted by
a force of British soldiers, which was making a flank movement, with
the intention, doubtless, of falling upon Sullivan's right wing.
Doubtless another force was executing a similar movement on the
opposite side, to attack Sullivan's left wing, and when this movement
was finished, the soldiers under Sullivan would be surrounded.

Dick halted instantly, on catching sight of the approaching soldiers.
He had seen them while still they were a couple of hundred yards
distant, they being easy to see owing to the brilliant red of their
coats, which stood out plainly between the trees. He wondered if he